An attractive, tidily organized collection of famed French philosopher Michel Foucault’s writing about film as well as scholarly reflections on that writing, translator/editor Clare O’Farrell’s Foucault at the Movies is a necessity for film scholars and philosophers alike. Filled with writing about Foucault and by Foucault himself, Foucault at the Movies is an effectively translated and admirably assembled work of film scholarship and philosophical history. Though the book would be a suitable text for a university course on philosophy, film or both, it is also readable enough to serve as entertainment as well.

Foucault at the Movies is split into two parts. The shorter opening section contains a chapter by Dork Zabunyan, a professor at the University of Paris, and a chapter by Patrice Maniglier, a lecturer at the University of Paris – Nanterre. The second part is devoted to work by Foucault himself. Zabunyan’s chapter is titled “What Film Is Able to Do: Foucault and Cinematic Knowledge” and Maniglier’s chapter is “Versions of the Present: Foucault’s Metaphysics of the Event Illuminated by Cinema. Together, the two scholars place Foucault’s fim writing within the philosopher’s wider body of work, particularly regarding history, and also outline the ways in which Foucault and his philosophies were influenced by film and influenced film.